Interview with Duygu Limnili Kirca

Taylor Root is proud to be supporting International Women’s Day 2017. We have interviewed a series of our female clients asking them how they have been bold for change #BeBoldForChange

Taylor Root interviewed Duygu Limnili Kirca, Chief Legal Counsel, Mondelez international Turkey.

Do you have any secrets to having a successful career?
In my opinion, passion and curiosity are the two components of success for a legal career. First and most, you need to enjoy and have passion for what you do. My passion has always been M&As – which basically meant entering into a new or an already known jurisdiction or industry, try to find your way through the unknown and explore possible ways of creating synergies with the target company. A new M&A makes me feel like I am in Alice in Wonderland.

What do you think is the most significant barrier to female leadership?
This is going to be a cliché –that they are or may become mothers one day! Being a mother or a perspective mother and having the ambition of climbing up the ladder in the corporate world is a tough job. Whether consciously or not, people always have doubts whether you can work for long hours, how many babies you will have, can you travel enough, will you stay until the end of the desert at customer dinners or leave etcs. I have seen just the opposite in my experience. I have observed young mothers return to work as more efficient, multifunctional and result focused individuals with better prioritization skills.

What would your advice be to women who are trying to achieve their career ambitions?
It is not going to be easy. There are ivies everywhere – seen or unseen, good or bad intended. It is yours, and no one else’s, responsibility to open the way to you. You must own your career. You must carefully plan for you next move, evaluate yourself whether you have the necessary skills and knowledge to get there and work to eliminate any discrepancies. One piece of advice I got from an executive I highly respect was to keep a career diary of what you have done, where you are now and where you are headed to in the future.